my windows xp pro has started to act funny with games. CoD4 and HL2
both crash randomly. When I start HL2 from steam, it flashes the
"starting half-life"-screen but doesn't start it. Before it just
randomly crashed to desktop while gameplay with some kind of "3D3
device"-error. CoD4 starts to show more and more black textures
(guns, crosshair...) and finally crashes with a "tempsavegame: cannot
open device for saving"-message. After crashing windows has the same
resolution as the games and it cannot be changed without booting,
iv'e even tried to force it from catalyst control center. The black-
texture problem baffles me, since its been quite common on nvidia
graphic cards.
After battling these problems, I re-installed windows and the
drivers, but the problems still exist. This is starting to look like
a hardware problem. I checked my hard drive for bad sectors, but
there weren't any. Next I plan to check my RAM, but I wanted to hear
your opinions and tips in trying to pinpoint the problem. My
drivers, directx and games are up to date. My setup:
Win XP pro 32bit
Corsair 850W HX
Msi dka790gx platinum mobo
AMD Phenom 9950 4-core am2+ 2,6ghz
4gB RAM DDR2 1066mhz
750gb seagate sata-II
Gainward Ati Radeon HD 4870 1024mb pci-e
--edit--
I ran a RAM test (memtest86+), which came out clean (10 passes),
AtiTool artefact finder (clean after 10mins) and Video Card Stability
Test (ran also for 10 mins). Bios tells me the voltages are OK,
although windows-based HW-monitors show odd voltages (1.324V @ 12V
rail etc.) and seem to follow wrong sensors.. HL2 now starts and
plays well, but the resolution problem after quitting still exists.
All of these problems suddenly just started about a few months ago.
I've played these games without problems a lot before..
--edit--
Sounds like malware, have you ran any dodgy registry cleaners or the like, try downloading and running malwarebytes. Or try a system restore to a previous known good working date.
